Larry Langford's briber gets pardon as ex-mayor stares at life in prison

Bill Blount, a briber in the crimes of former mayor and Jefferson County Commission President Larry Langford, was pardoned earlier this year by the Alabama Department of Pardons and Paroles this year.

Pardoned.

Which means he can vote.

And run for office.

And be a regular guy. As regular as a seersucker-wearing ex-con can be.

He might even be able to try to get his law license back - though his federal bribery sentence specifically stated that he needs permission from the court to practice law.

Despite pleading guilty to conspiracy and bribery in a scheme that paid Langford $234,000 to steer business to Blount's Montgomery firm, Blount will have all the rights and privileges of a non-ex-con, except the right to carry a gun.

Like nothing ever happened.

Blount, an investment banker and former head of the Alabama Democratic Party, would have gotten his gun rights back too, if the state of Alabama could have given them to him.

"Alabama does not have jurisdiction under federal law to restore gun rights on Federal convictions," said Eddie Cook Jr., assistant executive director of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. "This pardon restores all of his civil and political rights to include running for public office if he wishes. "

Well I beg your pardon too. This is life in Alabama. Where this - this is justice.

Blount ran a business that received $7.1 million from Jefferson County even as county government spiraled toward the largest municipal bankruptcy in history. One time his company received $2.4 million from the county simply because he claimed to possess "special knowledge" of county finances.

Which were in the toilet, by the way.

Bill Blount at sentencing in 2010. (File)

And he was pardoned, for bribing Langford with watches and clothes and baubles that to Blount amounted to chump change.

Langford was convicted of taking $235,000 worth of bribes. He remains in federal prison in Kentucky, where he is serving a 15-year prison sentence that will not end until 2023. Langford has been in the medical wing of that prison, where he will probably die.

Blount was convicted of paying the bribes. And he was implicated in bribing former commissioner Mary Buckelew, too. He was sentenced to 52 months in prison -- four years and four months -- and ended up serving less than two and a half years, much of it at the Maxwell prison camp.

Pardon me.

Blount at least was made to pay restitution of a million bucks. Which sounds like a lot. So let me do the math for you.

($7.1 million in county business)-($1 million in restitution)=($6.1 million left over in jack).

It's not that Langford didn't belong in prison. He did. He took clothes and Rolexes, fancy suits, jewelry and stereos. He took $235,000, and that's just what we know about. That's more than five times the median household income for Alabamians.

But it's also 3 percent of the amount Blount was paid in all those deals.

And Langford - if you believe the reports on his health - will likely die in that federal medical prison facility.